Dear Luv Doc,
I have been dating this female for the past six months or so. We are still in discovery phase of getting to know each other. She is kind, generous, thoughtful, sweet as can be, caring, etc. Oh yeah – she is loaded as well. Here is the problem, she eats like a fraternity boy. I’m talking going straight to the electric chair afterwards. It is, needless to say, a turnoff. Would love your words of wisdom.
— Muchas gracias, DC
I don’t recall ever watching fraternity boys eat. Don’t get me wrong. I am not acting all high and mighty. I’ve been to a few frat house dinners, but they’re mainly just vague recollections of sitting at a large table with a bunch of dudes who spent too much time thinking about their wardrobe. Normally I am an astute observer of humanity, but on those occasions I was always furiously trying to wolf down as many chicken friend steaks as I could before the Pikes found out I wasn’t a paying member. My experience up to that time – my freshman year in college – was that dining involved a level of focus and intensity that most people only witness on the playing field or in the Octagon.
I’m the youngest of four brothers – all big feeders – at least according to my grandpa, who was of English descent and convinced that his wife’s intergenerational Irish Potato Famine epigenetics had turned his grandsons into voracious eating machines. That was mostly true, though a certain amount of credit is due to my father, an Okie who somehow survived the entire Great Depression on a diet of turnips and squirrel necks – at least to hear him tell it. He was a staunch believer in a clean plate. Also in keeping one’s nose over it at all times. Failure to achieve one or both carried strict penalties that would probably earn a visit from CPS these days, but the end result was that we didn’t fuck around at the dinner table. We were all business. I think this frightened my grandpa a bit. He was an only child. How could he know the gnawing hunger of missing out on that last squirrel neck?
A certain amount of credit is due to my father, an Okie who somehow survived the entire Great Depression on a diet of turnips and squirrel necks – at least to hear him tell it.
Understandably, that rapaciousness carried through to my teenage years. My friends all knew that trying to steal something off my cafeteria tray was a good way to get a fork in the back of your hand. It was a mutual detente. We weren’t bite sharers. Even still, occasionally some doubter would fuck around and find out. (I’m looking at you George. You know what you did.) So yeah, I don’t remember how fraternity boys ate, but my general sense was that it was slower than me. Honestly, it wasn’t until I met my wife that I realized my eating pace was … uh … faster than average? Our dinners out were always me inhaling my food in five minutes and then watching her eat for the next 30. Try eating a chili dog in front of the tiger cage at the zoo and you’ll know how she must have felt.
What I’m getting at is that in this one area … as with many, many others … I can’t really offer any words of wisdom. Well, maybe it’s to use your pie hole for its intended purpose rather than slowing down dinner by pushing out a lot of hot air. Wait a minute. That’s probably not healthy. In this case patience, empathy … perhaps even a sense of wonderment? … might be the better approach. Maybe you could challenge her to see who can keep their mouth closed the longest while chewing. I acknowledge that it’s healthier to eat slowly, chew your food thoroughly and whatnot, maybe even meditate on the gratitude you feel for gaining sustenance. That’s all well and good, but sometimes your hunger is so immense that you just need to get some food down your gullet, STAT. In the words of the great poet Townes Van Zandt, “We all got holes to fill, and them holes are all that’s real.”